Abstract
The melt memory effect is a widely observed phenomenon in semi-crystalline polymers. In practical applications, various additives are usually introduced into polymers, which may affect their melt memory behavior. In this work, the effect of talc on the melt memory effect of metallocene-made isotactic polypropylene (M-PP) was investigated in detail by using the differential scanning calorimetry. The results indicated that the introduction of talc significantly strengthened the melt memory effect of M-PP. Specifically, the upper limit temperature of Domain II increased from 161 °C to 174 °C, resulting in a substantial widening of the temperature range of Domain IIa from 1 °C to 14 °C. Analysis of the crystal orientation of the M-PP containing talc cooled from various Ts suggested that the remarkably enhanced melt memory effect could be ascribed to the stabilization of oriented nuclei facilitated by talc. This stabilizing effect was likely attributable to the prefreezing effect or the sorption interaction between talc and the M-PP chains.
References
Sangroniz, L.; Cavallo, D.; Müller, A. J. Self-nucleation effects on polymer crystallization. Macromolecules 2020, 53, 4581–4604.
Fillon, B.; Wittmann, J.; Lotz, B.; Thierry, A. Self-nucleation and recrystallization of isotactic polypropylene (α phase) investigated by differential scanning calorimetry. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 1993, 31, 1383–1393.
Sangroniz, L.; Alamo, R.; Cavallo, D.; Santamaría, A.; Müller, A.; Alegría, A. Differences between isotropic and self-nucleated PCL melts detected by dielectric experiments. Macromolecules 2018, 51, 3663–3671.
Li, X.; Ma, Z.; Su, F.; Tian, N.; Ji, Y.; Lu, J.; Wang, Z.; Li, L. New understanding on the memory effect of crystallized iPP. Chinese J. Polym. Sci. 2014, 32, 1224–1233.
Sangroniz, L.; Cavallo, D.; Santamaria, A.; Müller, A. J.; Alamo, R. G. Thermorheologically complex self-seeded melts of propylene-ethylene copolymers. Macromolecules 2017, 50, 642–651.
Mamun, A.; Chen, X.; Alamo, R. G. Interplay between a strong memory effect of crystallization and liquid-liquid phase separation in melts of broadly distributed ethylene-1-alkene copolymers. Macromolecules 2014, 47, 7958–7970.
Gao, H.; Vadlamudi, M.; Alamo, R. G.; Hu, W. Monte Carlo simulations of strong memory effect of crystallization in random copolymers. Macromolecules 2013, 46, 6498–6506.
Liu, X.; Wang, Y.; Wang, Z.; Cavallo, D.; Müller, A. J.; Zhu, P.; Zhao, Y.; Dong, X.; Wang, D. The origin of memory effects in the crystallization of polyamides: role of hydrogen bonding. Polymer 2020, 188, 122117.
Lorenzo, A. T.; Arnal, M. L.; Sanchez, J. J.; Müller, A. J. Effect of annealing time on the self-nucleation behavior of semicrystalline polymers. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2006, 44, 1738–1750.
Marxsen, S. F.; Alamo, R. G. Melt-memory of polyethylenes with halogen substitution: random vs. precise placement. Polymer 2019, 168, 168–177.
Reid, B. O.; Vadlamudi, M.; Mamun, A.; Janani, H.; Gao, H.; Hu, W.; Alamo, R. G. Strong memory effect of crystallization above the equilibrium melting point of random copolymers. Macromolecules 2013, 46, 6485–6497.
Luo, C.; Sommer, J. U. Frozen topology: entanglements control nucleation and crystallization in polymers. Phys. Rev. Lett. 2014, 112, 195702.
Colonna, S.; Pérez-Camargo, R. A.; Chen, H.; Liu, G.; Wang, D.; Müller, A. J.; Saracco, G.; Fina, A. Supernucleation and orientation of poly(butylene terephthalate) crystals in nanocomposites containing highly reduced graphene oxide. Macromolecules 2017, 50, 9380–9393.
Vega, J. F.; Da Silva, Y.; Vicente-Alique, E.; Nunez-Ramirez, R.; Trujillo, M.; Arnal, M. L.; Müller, A. J.; Dubois, P.; Martinez-Salazar, J. Influence of chain branching and molecular weight on melt rheology and crystallization of polyethylene/carbon nanotube nanocomposites. Macromolecules 2014, 47, 5668–5681.
Maiz, J.; Fernandez-d’Arlas, B.; Li, X.; Balko, J.; Poeselt, E.; Dabbous, R.; Thurn-Albrecht, T.; Müller, A. J. Effects and limits of highly efficient nucleating agents in thermoplastic polyurethane. Polymer 2019, 180, 121676.
Liu, P.; Xue, Y.; Men, Y. Melt memory effect beyond the equilibrium melting point in commercial isotactic polybutene-1. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2019, 58, 5472–5478.
Yue, Y.; Sha, X.; Wang, F.; Gao, Y.; Zhang, L.; Wang, X.; Feng, J. The effect of β-nucleating agent on the self-nucleation of isotactic polypropylene. Polymer 2021, 229, 124009.
Sun, H.; Wang, L.; Yi, J.; Wang, F.; Gao, Y.; Sha, X.; Feng, J. The influence of melt temperature on the crystal orientation of polypropylene containing talc. Polymer 2022, 256, 125179.
Yue, Y.; Sha, X.; Wang, F.; Gao, Y.; Zhang, L.; Zhu, Y.; Wang, X.; Feng, J. Non-negligible effect of additives in the application of successive self-nucleation and annealing fractionation for microstructure characterization of matrix resin in additive-containing samples. ACS Appl. Polym. Mater. 2021, 3, 4634–4644.
Wang, X.; Yi, J.; Wang, L.; Feng, J. Comparison of the melt memory effects in matched fractions segregated from Ziegler-Natta and metallocene-made isotactic polypropylene with similar total defect content. Polymer 2021, 230, 124060.
Zhu, X.; Yan, D.; Yao, H.; Zhu, P. In situ FTIR spectroscopic study of the regularity bands and partial-order melts of isotactic poly (propylene). Macromol. Rapid Commun. 2000, 21, 354–357.
Dai, P. S.; Cebe, P.; Capel, M. Thermal analysis and X-ray scattering study of metallocene isotactic polypropylene prepared by partial melting. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2002, 40, 1644–1660.
De Rosa, C.; Auriemma, F.; Spera, C.; Talarico, G.; Tarallo, O. Comparison between polymorphic behaviors of Ziegler-Natta and metallocene-made isotactic polypropylene: the role of the distribution of defects in the polymer chains. Macromolecules 2004, 37, 1441–1454.
Chang, H.; Zhang, Y.; Ren, S.; Dang, X.; Zhang, L.; Li, H.; Hu, Y. Study on the sequence length distribution of polypropylene by the successive self-nucleation and annealing (SSA) calorimetric technique. Polym. Chem. 2012, 3, 2909–2919.
Auriemma, F.; De Rosa, C. Crystallization of metallocene-made isotactic polypropylene: Disordered modifications intermediate between the α and γ forms. Macromolecules 2002, 35, 9057–9068.
Jones, A. T.; Aizlewood, J. M.; Beckett, D. Crystalline forms of isotactic polypropylene. Makromol. Chem. 1964, 75, 134–158.
Foresta, T.; Piccarolo, S.; Goldbeck-Wood, G. Competition between α and γ phases in isotactic polypropylene: effects of ethylene content and nucleating agents at different cooling rates. Polymer 2001, 42, 1167–1176.
Choi, W. J.; Kim, S. C. Effects of talc orientation and non-isothermal crystallization rate on crystal orientation of polypropylene in injection-molded polypropylene/ethylenepropylene rubber/talc blends. Polymer 2004, 45, 2393–2401.
Branciforti, M. C.; Oliveira, C. A.; De Sousa, J. A. Molecular orientation, crystallinity, and flexural modulus correlations in injection molded polypropylene/talc composites. Polym. Adv. Technol. 2010, 21, 322–330.
Xu, J.; Ma, Y.; Hu, W.; Rehahn, M.; Reiter, G. Cloning polymer single crystals through self-seeding. Nat. Mater. 2009, 8, 348–353.
Rybnikář, F. Orientation in composite of polypropylene and talc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 1989, 38, 1479–1490.
Flieger, A. K.; Schulz, M.; Thurn-Albrecht, T. Interface-induced crystallization of polycaprolactone on graphite via first-order prewetting of the crystalline phase. Macromolecules 2017, 51, 189–194.
Dolynchuk, O.; Tariq, M.; Thurn-Albrecht, T. Phenomenological theory of First-order prefreezing. J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2019, 10, 1942–1946.
Tariq, M.; Dolynchuk, O.; Thurn-Albrecht, T. Effect of substrate interaction on thermodynamics of prefreezing. Macromolecules 2019, 52, 9140–9148.
Löhmann, A. K.; Henze, T.; Thurn-Albrecht, T. Direct observation of prefreezing at the interface melt-solid in polymer crystallization. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 2014, 111, 17368–17372.
Ma, L.; Zhou, Z.; Zhang, J.; Sun, X.; Li, H.; Zhang, J.; Yan, S. Temperature-dependent recrystallization morphologies of carbon-coated isotactic polypropylene highly oriented thin films. Macromolecules 2017, 50, 3582–3589.
Ma, L.; Zhang, J.; Memon, M. A.; Sun, X.; Li, H.; Yan, S. Melt recrystallization behavior of carbon-coated melt-drawn oriented isotactic polypropylene thin films. Polym. Chem. 2015, 6, 7524–7532.
Acknowledgments
This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51973037 and 52173056) and PetroChina Company Limited, China.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
The authors declare no interest conflict.
Electronic Supplementary Information
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sun, HW., Wang, FS., Gao, Y. et al. Significantly Enhanced Melt Memory Effect of Metallocene-made Isotactic Polypropylene Containing Talc. Chin J Polym Sci 42, 213–222 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-023-3027-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-023-3027-y